The Philippine National Police (PNP) urged Filipinos Friday, Dec. 2, to exercise vigilance when engaging in crypto operations as there are a new wave of scams involving this digital currency.
Police Lt. Michelle Sabino, spokesperson of the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG), said cybercriminals are taking advantage of the boom of cryptocurrency (digital currency) in the country to siphon off money from their victims, and one of these is the crypto investment scam.
“Cryptocurrency investment scam is a new modus of scammers now. They invite investors to invest money using crypto but it turns out it is a fake investment,” Sabino explained.
Sabino said that scammers will find investors who are willing to invest to them through a digital wallet or online banking. The investor will then be convinced to download a fake crypto application where one can monitor the fund that they invested.
She said the investor will be enticed to put in more money because the fund can be seen growing at an exponential rate over a short period of time.
“Once you start to withdraw, you won’t be able to withdraw your money. That’s how you know you have been a victim of crypto investment scam,” Sabino added.
Another form of scam involving cryptocurrency entails the use of fake job placements where scammers post fake job advertisement in job hiring sites.
During the application, Sabino said that the victim will be told to pay a processing fee but in a form of cryptocurrency. The victim will only know that the job posting is a scam once the fund transfer is processed and no actual job offer reaches him or her.
Earlier this week, Senator Risa Hontiveros revealed that a dozen Filipino trafficked workers were rescued in Myanmar after they fell victim to cryptocurrency scam.
Blackmail scams are also being used now by crypto scammers where they send emails to their target victims saying they have explicit photos and videos of themselves. The scammers will then force their victims to send money to them but in the form of cryptocurrency to prevent the leak of the photos and videos.
Sabino explained that more and more scammers are resorting to using cryptocurrenccy because it is “harder to detect.”
“Ang crypto po kaya nila gusto is mas harder to detect. Ang crypto account is made up of letters and numbers lang siya unlike ordinarily, when we open an account sa mga bangko, we need to submit valid IDs and all (They want crypto more because it is harder to detect. A crypto account is made up of letters and numbers only unlike ordinarily, when we open a bank account that we need to submit valid IDs and all),” she said.
At present, the PNP-ACG has yet to receive a formal complaint from victims of cryptocurrency scams but Sabino said their cyber patrols are seeing complaints from various social media pages about these things.
As such, the PNP-ACG cautioned the public from engaging in cryptocurrency operations, particularly investments offering unrealistic returns as these may be a scam.
“Huwag po tayong maniniwala sa mga investment na ang promise of interest o return of interest ay sobrang laki dahil wala pong ganoon. So most probably kayo po ay isang potential victim ng isang investment scam (Let us not believe investments that promise very big return of interest because it does not exist. Most probably you are potential victims of an investment scam),” Sabino said.
“Ang mga Filipinos kasi hindi tayo masyadong familiar sa crypto and because it’s growing rapidly, gusto natin maging in without really understanding ano ba tong crypto na ito (Many Filipinos are not really familiar with crypto and because it’s growing rapidly, we want to be ‘in’ without really understanding what crypto really is),” she added.